An emotional analysis of the lockdown: (no) time to relax

Here comes the analysis

knaldrag [knal-drang] noun – The intense desire to go out, to party, to dance.

My playlists all seem to have a cluster around 100 bpm. The same holds for the genres hip-hop/R&B and pop. (Notice that all of their means are slightly higher, since they spread out more to the right.) Indie/rock is clustered more around 120 bpm, and dance even more so.

The average danceabilities of my playlists lie between 0.6 and 0.9. The means, of about 0.7 confirm this. Dance tracks from about 0.5 to 0.9, also with a mean of 0.7. Not surprisingly, pop and indie/rock tracks have a somewhat lower danceability. Hip-hop/R&B tracks, however, have a slightly higher danceability.

It’s in the minor details of this major pandemic

My Top Tracks playlists clearly count more minor modes (64%) than the NL Top Tracks playlists (49%). Also, there is a slight increase in minor tracks in 2020 as opposed to 2019.

It is immediately apparent that the indie/rock and pop playlists contain relatively more major than minor tracks, as opposed to the other playlists. Also, my 2021 tracks are more likely to be in minor mode than my Top Tracks of 2019 or 2020. As in the energy-valence visualization, this might indicate that my taste in music has slightly shifted towards R&B.

Repetitive chord progressions and vocal ‘blocks’

This song was a typical Top Track of mine in 2020 (see song info). In the bars chromagram, you can clearly see the repetitive chord progression throughout the song – the skips from C to A to G. The sections chromagram clearly shows bright ‘blocks’ at D and C. The D-blocks represent the chorus vocals and the C-block represents the vocals in the bridge. The first few blocks at G, F and D represent the intro.

I think the overall look of these chromagrams are very representative of the tracks I generally listen to. Speaking from a music theoretic point of view, most songs have a standard verse-chorus structure (as shown by the the sections chromagram) and simple melodies and harmonies (as shown by the bars chromagram).

Different sounds in different sections

This song was a typical Top Track of mine in 2020 (see song info). Both cepstrograms clearly show the intro and outro in the third timbre component. The verses are also brighter in c03. The chorus sections, however, light up in c05. I wonder what this component represents. The second timbre component most clearly shows the bridge and the choruses somewhat.

What is most representative about this song, and clearly visualized in these cepstrograms, is that most songs I listen to have an intro and outro. Also, I believe I do not listen to many songs where the loudness – the first timbre component – changes a lot.

Self-similarity matrices

The song has the following structure:

Both matrices clearly show (parts of) the song’s structure. The chroma matrix clearly shows the instrumental intro (first strip), the vocal intro, outro and verse (light strips), and the choruses with bridge (dark squares). It makes sense that both choruses are similar in pitch. Interestingly, the bridge resembles them.

Also interesting to see is that the second post-chorus is not similar to the first post-chorus. When you listen to the song, however, it does make a lot of sense; in the outro, the guitar stops playing.

The timbre matrix also clearly shows the outro, for the same reason actually. Timbre is partly determined by instrumentation, so it makes sense that the outro (without guitar) resembles no other part of the song (with guitar).

Notable is the dark square at the bottom-left corner of the timbre matrix. This represents the percussion coming in. In general, all squares in the timbre matrix can be ascribed to the homogeneity of the percussion. A new square indicates a change or short pause in the percussion – even the slight changes just before 60 and 120 seconds represent a short percussion break of about a bar.

Also interesting, the vocal intro and the verse do not seem to be similar in pitch, but they do in timbre. The bridge and choruses, however, seem less similar in timbre than in pitch.

Achordingly, repetition is key

Both songs have a very tropical vibe. It’s interesting to see that, assuming the chordogram is correct, both songs seem to use the same few chords throughout the whole song. Whereas “Cash” seems to hold the same chord for a few bars, “Loop niet weg” alternates between chords and then repeats that pattern.

The final chapter: vaccination classification